Namco: Ridge Racer 3DS adapted for American tastes

A Namco Bandai localisation producer has said that Ridge Racer 3DS has been developed with US audiences in mind, with new features including muscle cars, familiar environments, and a one-button drift system like Mario Kart’s.

Speaking to Nintendo World Report, Ryo Totoyama commented that previous Ridge Racers had been built with a European flavour, but this time, the company had “tried to focus on the US audience”.

Totoyama mentioned that the Ridge Racer series has a significant entry barrier in the form of advanced drift mechanics, but that these had been wound down for the new title.

“Drifting itself is hard enough – sometimes it’s really hard to enter the drift state,” he said. “You’ve gotta release the gas pedal momentarily to enter the drift, and then you’ve got to counter steer and everything, to control the car.

“So we’ve introduced this easy one button drift system. It really works similar to Mario Kart. So these young audience, young gamers, they’re familiar with how Mario Kart works, so it really helps to lower the entry barrier.”

As well as a range of American muscle cars, a Miami-inspired coastal run and Sierra Nevada-like mountain track will appear.

The producer also commented that Ridge racer 3DS is “not a port at all” but an entirely discrete title developed to take advantage of stereoscopic 3D’s capacity for naturally sensing a vehicle’s position in a 3D field.